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8" Revelation Dob - Review

clipperride

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clipperride

clipperride

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About 5 years ago I started to look at the night sky with binoculars and started to learn my way around the constellations. Nearly 2 years ago my fiancé bought me my first telescope – a 4.5” reflector on an equatorial mount. With a copy of “Turn Left at Orion” and a fair bit of patience I was quickly hooked by what I saw. The eyepieces that came with the scope weren’t that hot so I replaced them and was impressed by the improvement.

I have recently been thinking about upgrading both the finder scope and mount. The mount is a little shaky and the finder scope doesn’t really show all that much. As I am on a limited budget it took some time before I was able to think seriously about it. Reading Sky At Night magazine I was impressed with the review of the 10” Revelation and discovered that the 8” was available at £229! I took the plunge and ordered one along with a collimation eyepiece and a 2” Barlow (2x).

It arrived this afternoon. All was well packaged with the base coming as a flat pack. One small gripe is the instructions are printing in a very small font, but with a little reading through, where easy to follow. It took about 30 minutes to put everything together and needed only a Philips head screwdriver and a supplied Alan Key.

The OTA is an F6 (200mm), 8” primary mirror and a 2” Crawford focuser. It also comes with a small fan (PC case fan) and battery box to aid cooling. The finder is an 8x50 scope. This being the first time I have ever collimated a scope I decided to grab the bull by the horns and do things right from the beginning. The scope was very close to perfect when I got it, but I soon managed to change that and get the mirrors widely out of line! A short swearing session later I re-read the instructions, took things slowly and managed to get everything spot on.

By this time it was late afternoon and I decided to leave aligning the finder as all suitable daytime objects for this kind of thing are to the West and I didn’t want to run the risk of straying onto the sun with either finder or scope.

About 8:30pm it looked as though it might be clear so I moved everything outside and started up the cooling fan. After only half an hour the temptation to have a quick look at the moon grew too strong! With the supplied 26mm 2” eyepiece I aimed at the Moon by looking down the tube and WOW! The detail after using a 4.5” scope was incredible. I used the Moon to roughly set the finder scope, then moved across to Saturn to fine tune it. Again the view was really breath taking. I fitted the supplied 1.25” adaptor and was very nicely surprised with the views from my existing eyepieces. After taking in M44 Beehive Cluster and returning to the Moon to look at the detail at higher power (6mm 1.25”) I swung round to Jupiter. Again much more detail than I have previously been able to see.

M13, the Hercules Cluster was easy to spot in the finder scope and again a treat to view. I managed to loose a locking screw by dropping it on the lawn, but I guess we must offer something to the Cloud Gods in tribute!

As the clouds where starting to roll back in I packed up and headed inside. A very satisfied customer indeed! I can see this scope serving me for years to come

Mark

PS Also managed a quick look at fragment C of Comet 73/P - Splendid!

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clipperride

clipperride

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Thanks for the warm welcome to the Forum. I have been a "lurker" for sometime, but just had to share the joy of my new scope.

Just off out to see if I can spot that blooming screw in the daylight.

Did you know- When looking for a small metal screw on an overgrown lawn with a red light, every single dew drop shines like metal ??

Regards

Mark

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iancandler

iancandler

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They are indeed great scopes.. I have the 10".. one thing that happened with mine though was the screws holding the side bearing's to the tube worked loose.. On inspection I found that the nuts where plain nuts with no star washers or thread lock applied. Its worth keeping an eye on them and possibly doing as I am and replacing them with nylock nuts.

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geppetto

geppetto

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Does anyone use the Fan on these scopes?

I don't on mine because I read that the fan cools the mirror

unevenly but don't know if thats a valid argument, just seemed to make sense

as its a small diameter fan in the centre of a large diameter mirror. :?

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GazOC

GazOC

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Does anyone use the Fan on these scopes?

I don't on mine because I read that the fan cools the mirror

unevenly but don't know if thats a valid argument, just seemed to make sense

as its a small diameter fan in the centre of a large diameter mirror. :?

I'm the same Gep, I don't know how true it is but it certainly makes sense. Either way it's easier to just give the scope a while longer to cool rather than try to shave 10 mins off the cool down time IMHO.

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daz

daz

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I use my fan, I give it 20 mins or so, and then switch it off - give it another 20 minutes or so and then it's fine.

It's also useful to dispel a dewed up mirror, eh James?!

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FLO

FLO

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I have never used the fan on mine (the Dob lives in Greg's garage, always ready 8)).

PS: James, You're gonna like that scope. Are you going to use it as a Dob? I am interested to know how much detail you can see in Jupiter?

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OXO

OXO

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PS: James, You're gonna like that scope. Are you going to use it as a Dob? I am interested to know how much detail you can see in Jupiter?

Going to use it mounted and also as a Dob Steve nice quick setups with the Dob when the skies look a little cloudy and when its fine i'll mount it :). Jupiter should look awsome in scope i will let you know Asap on that one..

James

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